As is generally well known, freight articles, such as parcels, are transported by rail and trailer type vehicles in what is commonly referred to as a ground line haul. More specifically, the parcels are being transported by a rail mode of operation for long distances and a trailer mode of operation for shorter, local distances. One essential feature of the ground line haul is a transfer of these parcels from/to rail and trailer vehicles. Another essential feature of the ground line haul is handling of the articles in a transloading facility. A further essential feature of the ground line haul is a space utilization of either rail or trailer vehicles. Prior to the conception and design of the instant invention, difficulties have been experienced in a cost efficient method of ground line haul operations due to higher than desirable efforts and equipment costs for loading/unloading of parcels and their transport between rail and trailer modes, i.e. modal exchange, including parcel transloading facility. Furthermore, it has been found that neither rail nor trailer vehicles were loaded to full available spatial/volume capacity, resulting in a wasted transport space. More specifically, an inefficient connectivity between modes results in a slow terminal velocity and high terminal operating cost. Inefficient use of equipment results in low ton/mile efficiency, low cube/linear foot ratios, inherent high cost with container/chassis in ground operations, poor usage of trailers on trailer-on-flat-car (TOFC) transportation mode, excessive fuel consumption, sustainability loss, restricted intermodal penetration by rail, not conducive to Hub-n-Spoke operations, and excessive “first mile” pick-up and “last mile” delivery (P&D) mileage by a truck trailer.
Underscored below are some of the current “operating standards” that Applicants found and/or believe as hindering intermodal efficiency of ground line haul.
The freight pallet, first used in the 1930's was designed to consolidate cargo onto a 12 sq/ft platform and still be small enough to enter doorways using a hand pallet jack. Today's pallets have remained relatively similar in size; however, the air freight industry has adapted a platform, the ULD (unit load device), with a footprint several times larger. This increase in the consolidation platform speeded terminal velocity allowing rapid turnaround of aircraft in hub-n-spoke operations measured in minutes. The ULD platform should be the “common denominator” in efficient transfer between truck and rail as well. Higher terminal velocity with quicker modal exchange at significantly lower operating cost subsequently bodes well for rail's ability to penetration intermodal operations deeper into the entire North American rail network.
The 40′ISO container dimension, 8′×40′×8′, was established over 50 years ago as the standard for international shipping and at that time the average US highway trailer was similar in size. Today's trailer vansare as much as 48% larger, making the ISO container a poor capacity comparison forground movement. In addition, marine containers travel too far inland, causing excess cost in container inventories, chassis demand, maintenance and storage; equaling over 110 billion dollars annually.
The 53′ domestic container is problematic for the trucking industry because the combined container/chassis tare weight is several thousand pounds heavier than a domestic trailer, restricting cargo density in order to comply with highway weight regulations. Basically, the container/chassis combination is a “two-piece trailer” requiring significantly greater capital investment cost with higher operational and maintenance expenditures than the domestic highway trailer. Lastly, the 53′ container has been all but ignored as a practical container for marine transit and overseas land use.
The rail boxcar has much greater advantages both in cargo cube and weight capacities than the double-stack container car; however, the boxcar's fundamental design has remained virtually unchanged for 180 years. While boxcar capacity has improved somewhat; the side-door and loading dock access does not lend itself to efficient and speedy cargo exchange.
Current intermodal products, double-stack and trailer-on-flat-car (TOFC) methods have the lowest ton/mile efficiency and capacity/linear foot ratios compared to all other types of unit trains. In addition, the large voids between double-stack railcars require 30% fuel consumption to overcome the high aerodynamic drag that it creates, among the highest drag ratios in the rail industry. Also, trailers riding on TOFC trains essentially idle thousands of trailers for road use daily, which is an inefficient use of equipment assets. A third service offering in ground intermodal is needed that will capitalize on rail's true assets: high train density and capacity.
Current North American intermodal rail terminals require high traffic volumes to cover their cost of operation and still yield a profit, which sharply limits the number of facilities within the network. As a consequence, intermodal rail is restricted to less than half of the available national rail network because of the operational necessity for huge facilities with high traffic volume. This has resulted in bottlenecks, predominately concentrated in large metropolitan markets, which bypass hundreds of smaller market opportunities. To date, there are only 64 locations throughout all of North America where railroads have clustered 101 terminals. Current rail intermodal service needs at least 650 miles of lane in order to absorb the terminal costs.
Truck pickup and delivery service (P&D) is the most costly mode in intermodal movement and under present practices have mileage requirements that are too long.
Therefore, there is a need for a device, system and method to improve the ground haul of freight articles and transfer of these articles between trailer and rail vehicles, including freight article transloading facilities.
There is a further need for incorporating unit load devices (ULD) as the basic pallet platform, speeding terminal throughput velocity, developing hub-n-spoke rail networks, raising intermodal train capacity, developing deeper rail penetration, creating zone skipping operations using rail intermodal transport, and improving predictability of ground line haul operations.